Your Dog Rescue Stories

Sunday, May 04, 2014

The "Do As I Do" Dog Training Method

How many of you teach your dog tricks or commands using the clicker, or treat (food or toy) reward methods? Now how many of you have tried the "Do as I do" training method, that involves the dog mimicking human behavior? Although we've read about this before, Parental Unit has never tried this with me—what with all the time I spend writing this blog, Parental Unit doesn't think I need to mimic any more human behavior!

Huh? You read all the time, so I'm just mimicking your behavior... Fab photo of me by Clark Creative

One of our favorite holistic veterinarians, Dr. Karen Becker, put together this article and videoabout the "Do as I do" dog training method that not only explains and demonstrates how it's done, but demystifies the scientific research that backs it up.The cool thing about this method of learning is that it involves social learning and deeper cognitive skills than reward training.

You might remember that John Pilleyused this training method with his Border Collie, Chaser, to great success. While we dogs can't all be like Chaser, we think the "Do as I do" training method is a great way to mentally stimulate your canine, while challenging you to spend more quality time with us.

P.S. Speaking of pet enrichment, stay tuned for our interview with Dr. Tony Buffington, DVM, a world renowned cat expert and author of the new Ibook, Cat Mastery. What Parental Unit learned from this book and from her conversation with Dr. Buffington has upended her thinking about indoor cats—we can't wait to hear what you think!

Nice! seems like everything's on the right track. I've just read earlier a forum post about do as I do training method and saw this after. Thanks! good read. This is gonna be a successful a Puppy Training method :)